Oh, My Days!

 The BBC and ITV appear to be under the allusion that everyone in the land is VERY excited about the European Football Championships, and have consequently smothered their television schedules for the next three weeks with incessant coma-inducing football matches. This means I’ve had to make many book purchases from Kindle because the only TV programme to suit this viewer’s requirements over the next three weeks is the final of ‘The Great British Sewing Bee’ next Wednesday, and then that’s it. If the weather holds out, then the garden is going to find itself very well tended. If the weather turns, well, I now have a well-stocked Kindle App to fulfil my entertainment needs, plus a couple of sewing projects that sprang/sprung/ springed to mind this very day. What is it with football? I’ve never seen the appeal. All that shouting and spitting, rolling around on the floor like truculent toddlers, being paid obscene amounts of money…I could go on, but I shan’t because I did a very lovel...

 You know that moment in the film ‘Of Mice and Men’ when Lennie flings himself into the pool for a drink and George tells him off for gulping the water like a horse because it might not be fresh and he could get tummy ache? (You’ll be trés au fait with this scene if you are a teacher of English because, well, how many times have we read that bloody novel and watched the film? Too many times, that’s how many. Hours and hours we shall NEVER get back...sigh...) Anyway, there was a wood pigeon at the water bowl in our bird feeding station this morning re-enacting that VERY scene. Seriously, I thought it was going to drown, such was the energy of the quaffing, and then I’d be obliged to make pigeon pie for dinner. Waste not, want not, eh? Also visiting the bird feeding station have been Alan and Jean Pheasant WITH A BABY CHICK! Mucho excitemondo from me, I can tell you! And in the bird box at the top of the Damson Cottage estate... ...baby blue tits! They look almost ready to fledge. Ho...

 Today is the start of the Wildlife Trust’s ‘30 Days Wild’, an environmental initiative to encourage folk to commit Random Acts of Wildness during the month of June. Here are some of the activities they suggest you try... ...and I began the month by sowing a packet of wildflower seeds. I sowed them in a large pot, because some of the contents of the seed packet are NOT what I would like to see released into the wild of my garden. Especially ones like buttercups which are one of my constant battle weed enemies...I mean, plants. By sowing the wildflowers in a pot my plan is to see what comes up then cherry pick what goes into the garden. That’s the plan anyway. And we all know what Nature thinks of a plan. But I can at least try.  I had a pootle around the home estate to see what flowers are now in bloom, given that a week ago they were all hiding from the cold, rain, wind and frost but now we’ve had a few days of sunshine, dare I say...Summer??!! Hurrah!!! And this is what I fo...